Although nearly 60 percent of holiday shoppers have already begun their seasonal shopping, millions more are holding out for the biggest holiday shopping weekend of the year.

April 6, 2018

2 Min Read

An estimated 135.8 million shoppers will turn out online, in-stores next weekend.

Although nearly 60 percent of holiday shoppers have already begun their seasonal shopping, millions more are holding out for the biggest holiday shopping weekend of the year.

According to NRF’s Preliminary Thanksgiving Weekend survey, an estimated 135.8 million shoppers (58.7 percent) definitely will or may shop on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and/or Sunday, similar to the 61.1 percent who planned to last year, and more than the 55 percent of holiday shoppers who said they did shop in stores and online over the weekend in 2014. More than 133 million shoppers turned out for Thanksgiving weekend 2014.

“The importance of Thanksgiving weekend to both retailers and consumers will never change. However, retailers have already given consumers several good reasons to start their holiday shopping earlier,” says Matthew Shay, president and chief executive officer, NRF. “We suspect early holiday shoppers could still be on the fence about whether or not to try their hand at finding online and in-store deals Thanksgiving weekend. But this weekend isn’t the end-all-be-all; it’s important to remember, there will be several important weekends to keep an eye on before we wrap up the holiday season.”

Of those who plan to or are anticipating they may shop online or in-store over the weekend, most will shop on Black Friday (73.5 percent vs. 68.2 percent from the NRF’s preliminary survey in 2014), though 22.3 percent say they are anticipating retailers’ Thanksgiving Day deals, compared to 18.3 percent in 2014 survey. Saturday is often overlooked because it’s sandwiched between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but the numbers speak for themselves: 49 percent of those surveyed say they will shop in stores and online on Saturday, up from the 42.9 percent in last year’s preliminary survey. One in five (23.1 percent) say they will or may shop on Sunday.

NRF also asked those Saturday shoppers if they would specifically shop for Small Business Saturday: the survey found 22.3 percent said they would and 54 percent said “maybe.”

And for the first year, NRF asked about plans to shop on Cyber Monday. According to the survey 79.6 percent–or a potential 183.8 million unique shoppers–said they would or may shop on Cyber Monday.

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